DENVER Gov. John Hickenlooper vetoed a bill Monday that would have charged needy families up to $50 a month to get government health insurance for their children.
Health care advocates had urged Hickenlooper to veto Senate Bill 213. It passed with bipartisan support, but Democrats quickly regretted the vote.
Hickenlooper said it made sense to expect families to share some of the cost of their health care, but he worried that the monthly fee would force families to drop their insurance.
At a time when employers large and small are struggling to continue to provide health insurance to workers, it doesnt make sense to heap additional costs on the health care system in the form of uncompensated care, Hickenlooper wrote in his veto letter to the Legislature.
It was Hickenloopers first veto of a bill, and it angered Republicans who insisted on the fee as part of a deal to pass the state budget.
Speaker of the House Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, was extremely disappointed about the veto.
Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate took an important step on welfare reform and the governor took a step back, McNulty said in a news release.
SB 213 would have charged a monthly fee between $20 and $50, depending on family size, to parents of children in the Child Health Plan Plus program, which offers insurance to children and pregnant women.
Currently, many families pay a low annual fee. SB 213 would have created a higher monthly fee for families making between 205 percent and 250 percent of the federal poverty level, or $45,000 to $55,000 for a family of four.
Health advocates applauded the veto. Elisabeth Arenales of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy said 2,400 children would have become uninsured if the bill had become law.
This proposal was looking for revenue in exactly the wrong place families already teetering on the edge of economic security, Arenales said.
Prior to Tuesday, the governor did veto some footnotes in the state budget, but he hadnt vetoed a full bill until now.
Reach Joe Hanel at joeh@cortezjournal.com.